


The Role I Play

by smolder



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-23
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-14 21:24:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/519657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smolder/pseuds/smolder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It is hard for a parent to accept that their little girl has the gift of Death but she knows how to deal with it now. She has gone through these fights a lifetime ago – she can be the mother this little girl needs." FFA Joyce Summers-Anita Blake</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Role I Play

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing. Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon and Anita Blake belongs to by Laurell K. Hamilton.  
> A/N: Gotta be honest, not entirely happy with how this one turned out. I'm rather pleased with the concept I'm playing with here but I almost feel like it deserves more. I'm in the mindset right now to keep writing to get back in the habit of it so I stll hope you like it and I might revist this (the concept anyway).   
> A/N 2: Reviews are Good. This has been a subtle hint from the author - Please return to your regularly scheduled reading.

  
  
It took her while to understand.  
  
Really, it honestly did. Because she died. She clearly remembered that. She didn’t want to go, her family needed her. But it hadn’t mattered.  
  
She died.   
  
And then suddenly she was somewhere else.

Somewhere else with another family who she always remembers being the mother of as well.  
  
And it is _hard_ because inside she is mourning Buffy and Dawn. And Xander, Willow, Spike, and Mr. Giles.   
  
She is mourning her entire world.  
  
All the while she knows, as she starts to get used to a body that looks nothing like her old one, that they are mourning her as well. That her old body is in the ground.  
  
So, it takes her a while to understand. And it’s not until Anita starts displaying some of her powers (little accidents that often scare her, that scare them _all_ at first) that she finally understands.   
  
It is hard for a parent to accept that their little girl has the gift of Death but she knows how to deal with it now. She has gone through these fights a lifetime ago – she can be the mother this little girl needs. She can make sure she knows it’s alright. Can soothe when a father says something a bit bluntly. Can sing away nightmares of bodies trying to reach out of their graves towards her that they both know are very based in reality.  
  
These things are all familiar.  
  
So Joyce is not surprised when she is killed off again. This time a car accident when her little girl is only eight. It seems that her role to the Powers is always to be only the character of _the mother_ , (gentle and caring before they're sharply and   
suddenly taken away – an impactful incident that effects and forms the rest of the child’s life) from her memory of fairy tales mothers don’t often last very long.   
  
But, as she fades Joyce knows she can’t not play her role. They will place her again and she will care for her children because that is who she is.


End file.
